burning with red pepper- ask them for your teeth, aunt Mary, and thank me for having preserved your shape so well, and for having left untouched the pleasant smiles which adorn your countenance.'

'Pooh, pooh!' murmured the good lady, say no more about my person. I never prided myself on my good looks; and as for all thou hast robbed me of, thou cunning thief! I heartily forgive thee, in consideration of the lessons thou hast taught me; strength to withstand, wisdom to endure, misfortune; patience-resignation; these were thy gifts, after sorrow had laid me low; and thou hast taught me, moreover, the folly of repining; the beauty and the virtue of cheerfulness. I would not stay thy wings, O Time! Move on, and lead me to everlasting peace!'

Leaving this lady to her peaceful slumbers, he prepared to enter a ball-room, which was lighted, decorated, and crowded with youth and beauty, in celebration of the entrance of the new year. Time strutted in, with an air of importance, expecting to excite general attention, and to receive the thanks of the company for his annual present; but to his surprise and mortification, no one took the least notice of him, though he brought the new year in his hand, and was indeed the author of all these festivities. Half a hundred young couples were footing it lightly to the music; and if Time himself had told them it was past twelve o'clock, they would hardly have believed him. It would have been equally difficult to convince them that the night was cold; for they had danced themselves into the agreeable condition described by one of the town ladies in the Vicar of Wakefield; and some of the flushed and over-heated youths had slyly let down a sash here and there, to the free admission of currents of frosty air. A bevy of shivering mammas, and single ladies, who did not look for partners in the ball-room, had taken refuge in an ante-room, for the benefit of a fire that was blazing there; and as Time looked in, and nodded to them with a sympathizing air, he soon found that they were not so unmindful of his presence. He left them looking at their watches, and fidgetting about the young people; and passing once more unperceived through the ball-room, he stepped at once into a far different scene.

The lodging room of a sick lady was lighted by the feeble ray of a night lamp, which cast flickering shadows round the wall, and against the heavy hangings of the bed. Time lingered there; there he flapped his weary wings, and hung heavily on each lengthening hour. A thin white hand appeared, and drew aside the curtain, and then a gentle voice was heard, calling on the nurse. A middleaged woman rose hastily from her pallet-bed, to obey the summons. I hear sleigh bells, nurse, and voices in the street; it must be morning.'

6

'Oh! dear, no ma'am !' said the nurse;' it is but the turn of the night, and they are seeing the new year in,' merrily, ma'am ; that's all.'

Are you sure it is no later, nurse? How slowly the hours drag along! Oh! when will daylight come!'

'Can I get any thing for you, dear madam ?- a composing draught, or the like?'

No, no.

What need had she of medicine? Full well she knew

that the great physician' was at hand, to administer the 'final cure.' In a feeble voice, she asked for a small and curiously-fashioned writing case, which lay on the toilette near; begged for a lamp on the stand at her bed side; and the nurse, weary with long watching, betook herself to sleep again. When the woman's hard breathing proved that she slept, the sick lady raised her head, and detaching from her neck a small key, with the ribbon which secured it, applied it to the tiny lock of her writing case, and taking thence a small packet, pressed it with trembling hands to her lips, to her bosom, all pale and emaciated as they were; and then turning her streaming eyes on Time: These, these are all thou hast left me! Ah! cruel thief! thou art mocking me with another year! The past, the past! Oh! bring me back my friends - my health-my early joys!' Time said nothing; but he fanned her with his leaden wings, as she proceeded to untie the precious relics, over which he knew she was weeping her last. When each envelope was removed, and nothing appeared but a withered rose-bud, and a lock of hair, which the poor lady pressed convulsively to her lips, and gazed on with passionate fondness, the eyes of Time glistened with something like a tear. He had mingled with the dust the manly head on which that raven tress once grew; and each sister rose he had long since scattered to the elements from which they sprang; but here love had mastered him. He had outlived Time's withering touch, and held fast these sad emblems of his own undying power.

As Time turned slowly from the scene, and was passing onward to the fulfilment of his destined course, he encountered a mysterious and shrouded form. It was the Angel of Death.'

·

Whither away, dark angel!—and why do I meet thee here?' whispered Time.

'I come,' said Death, 'to exclude thee forevermore from the presence of her thou wouldst treacherously pretend to soothe, and to heal, after having robbed her of the best gifts of earth. I come, with a hand of might, to scare thee from thy prey!'

Time answered not, but fled affrighted before the terrible countenance of his destroyer; and when morning dawned, and the beautiful sun, outshining the sickly lamp, shed a bright glow through the curtains, on the very pillow-there, on that pale brow, death sat triumphant.

WHAT! chain the spirit! sooner might'st thou chain
The bounding billows to the rock-ribbed shore,
Or pluck the thunder from the tempests' roar,

When the keen lightnings sting the foaming main,
And royal Midnight holds right solemn reign:

Or, sooner might'st thou tether with a thread

The ponderous clouds, which, with an air of dread,

Do pioneer the sea-born hurricane;

And this is the soul's mystery!-wind, and night,
And the big storms which wrestle far at sea,

And the black clouds which gird themselves with might,
And with the mountains hold society,

These have proud freedom, but the soul has more:
An endless life on an eternal shore.

Utica, January, 1839.

H. W. R.

A WINTER NIGHT.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE LAMENT OF THE CHEROKEE,' IN THE NOVEMBER NUMBER.

OR THE MODERN SILENUS: BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GOVERNOR'S VISIT TO JEMAICO.'

SILENUM pueri somno videre jacentem,
Inflatum hesterno venas, ut semper, Iaccho,
Serta procul tantum capiti delapsa jacebant;
Et gravis attrita pendebat cantharus ansa.'

VIRG. ECL. VI.

The gar

THE day of your picturesque drunkards is almost over. lands have perished from their brows, and the last Anacreon is dead of a grape-stone. We look at them with Spartan eyes; for adulterous drugs are mingled with the juice of the vintage, and instead of the old age of the bacchanal, and fine frenzy, and wantonness to be smiled at, death comes prematurely, preceded by bloatedness, and trembling delirium. The young man perisheth suddenly in his cups, and rarely are the words of the Teian repeated: 'Anacreon, the women say that thou art an old man.'

I recollect, at the period of my early boyhood, while at school at J—, a poor old man,' totally given to a life of intoxication, who used to roam about the village, by the name of JOE HAYWOOD. From some circumstances connected with him, he was not followed with the unpitying detestation which is the lot of the common drunkard. He was never driven away, when he solicited at the hand of charity, and in some of the kindest hearts in the village, there was a sympathy for his ruin.

Not a few would permit him to take a breakfast in the kitchen, or bestow on him clean articles of dress, or conduct him to a place of shelter for the night; to a barn or a shed, it is true, for his day was

past for wishing or deserving any thing better. Here, when his crutches were deposited, and his bed made of straw, and his white head composed on some old cushion, he saw that his stone bottle was safe at his side, and then, with often eloquent gratitude, wished a good night' to his conductors, and a far happier lot than his own.

In summer, his nightly retreat was in an old arbor, overrun with vines, in a garden. Thither, as the shades of night came on, he was tenderly conducted by boys and urchins, and as his vinous head sank among the sweet branches of the honeysuckle, beguiled them with many an antique song, and marvellous tale, until dark night had closed upon the scene, and a disturbed repose sealed up the eyes of the bacchanal.

There was something very touching in this old man's history. I shall not attempt to mention all the particulars, but in his more subdued moments, he himself would eloquently recount them. The bitterness of soul which he manifested during these recitals, and the self-loathing expressions with which he acknowledged himself vanquished, and without the power to resist, were affecting to all who heard him, and showed that in a heart so seared by a guilty passion, there was still an under current of feeling, which would display itself at intervals; like the fount of Arethusa, which, though long concealed from human view, pursued its uninterrupted course, until it threw up its sparkling waters in the far-distant isle of Ortygia. The elevation from which he had fallen was fearful. An Englishman by birth, and of a respectable parentage, his early prospects had been dazzling. But there is many a fair and pleasant morning, which turns to be a dark and stormy day.' In the possession of ample fortune, undoubted talents, brilliant wit, and a glorious beauty, he ran his wild career through the university, where he was the master-spirit of every festive circle. Haywood loved his wine, his friends, his classics, and his horse. Betwixt them all, he fared badly. His company was sought, his wit approved, his songs encored, his money dissipated, his health impaired. After this, a few successive winters spent amid the allurements of the metropolis, destroyed the last remnants of fortune and character. tale in which love, beauty, passion, jealousy, and a duel, were mingled, came to its dénouement. Deserted by friends, and reduced to abject beggary, he enlisted a soldier, and, after various service in eastern countries, his regiment was ordered to Nova Scotia. He subsequently wandered into the United States, and was employed as usher in different seminaries of learning; but intemperate habits, contracted in youth, and rendered inveterate in the camp, unfitted him for any responsible office, so that he began to lead a vagabond life, and at the time when I recollect him, was a poor, abject, pitied old man, a hanger-on of the village. Still, however, he retained much of his former wit and erudition, and in conversation displayed the shattered fragments of a once elegant and educated mind. He was indeed acquainted with all English literature, especially the poets, as far back as Chaucer, being able to recite many passages; and if a vigorous memory ever failed him, he supplied the deficiency himself. He was accustomed to vary his selections with his company. In the village inn, he repeated the pointed stanzas of Prior, with great applause; but in the open air, on steps, porticos, piazzas, and under

A